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Pro/Cons of RIFT (From someone who has a max level character)
I just finished hitting level 50 as an Eth Mage. (Which is the Defiant side) I was never originally going to play Rift, but here I am.
Pros
- In-depth class system. It blows WoW out the window, that's for sure. I'm sure most are aware of this, but it really is well done. The amount of flexibility and customization is pretty out there. It'll take you a while to grow bored of one character, since you can can have up to 4 builds.
- Rifts and Invasions. They break up the monotiny of questing and add an exciting random element to all the zones. Imagine constant outdoor raids.
- Polished. Grab WoW and polish it like hell, you've got Rift. They also added the collections idea from Everquest 2. So collection-whores will be overjoyed.
- Customer service. Just amazing. Very prompt.
- Technical service. Constant bug fixes. They are super quick at fixing. My bf came across a handful of bugs (including a seriously game-breaking cleric bug that allowed infinite mana) and Trion wasted no time fixing it. I haven't been impressed by MMO customer service in a long time.
- Friendlier community. Despite massivly overblown threads, the community is overall pleasant and like a fresh air compared to WoW. (You will encounter the usual idiots in PvP though, but that's agiven.)
- Gorgeous scenery. The views just get better and better as you progress. Shimmersand was pretty impressive. Zone layouts aren't tedious and progress in a fluid manner.
Cons
- Nothing very revolutionary or original in the slightest. Rifts could be seen as shiny and new...but in reality it's essentially the public quest system from Warhammer online. It's a WoW clone, but an excellent one and one worth trying at least.
- Meh story. This is more opinionated but...the way in which the story is presented failed to capture me. I found myself skipping through most of the quest text, it was mostly mundane. Don't get me wrong, there's a decent overall story (my partner explained much of the lore and story as we played) But none of the characters or anything like that were particularly memorable.
- PvP. It's seriously fun, but serious imbalance issues also. It's just only made worse by the huge amount of possible builds. Trion admitted class balance is always going to be a big ongoing issue. Both me and my bf encountered a warrior that was doing literally 9k damage per hit! (No exaggeration whatsoever) This guy was clever and set up his build, gear and enchantments just right. Marksman rogues are ridiculous at the moment too. I don't doubt it will be nerfed soon though. Like WoW patches seem to make certain builds too overpowered or underpowered, but it's even worse in Rift.
- Same old end-game. I know this goes back to my first con point but...ugh. There are rift raids (which are pretty awesome) and the usual gear grind and expert dungeons, so this may or may not be a good thing for you. Don't expect anything truly new in this regard though.
Comments
good review.
Kinda reminds me of some bands I like. They are good to listen too but, would not buy their album or go out of my way to see them in person.
RIFT is fun and a good diversion but, there is nothing in there that just grabs ya and says PLAY ME! Story? Missed out on most of the quest text. Just too much of it and you get inundated with a host of quests at each Hub. Very WoW-ish in that nature. Pop into a hub pull in all of the 5-12 quests at one time, run out there and complete them. Coma back, tunr in, select next round rinse repeat until you get the quest to move on to the next hub.
The game is nice and the graphx are tight.
WHERE THIS GAME SHINES:
The customization and being able to change specs with minimal effort and cost is nice. Get tired of playing a certain way? Go respec and try something new. Really like the fact that you can completely change the way you play the game without having to go back and grind through the beginner levels again is so nice. Those of you like me that have an Alt-Habit will absolutely LOVE this aspect of the game.
Once you have completed the quests to get all of the various skill trees it really turns into a fun game to play that you can change out time and time again without needing to replay or rehash low level areas over and over again!
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
Well you've pretty much highlighted all the major pros & cons that I would agree with. There are quite a lot of things Trion did right with Rift and a lot of areas they need to improve on. Just yesterday I finished my personal journey into Rift; seeing what I can achieve in the free month the game offered (I just won't sub to an MMO) and I made a vid of some of my exploits.
- 30 days of Rifting (vid)
Since I haven't played WoW (only played LotRO), Rift was a completely new experience for me and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the freedom it offered with its soul tree system (though I gimped myself several times). I enjoyed being able to PvP and tackle dungeons from level 15. I enjoyed the zone-wide invasions, which usually ended in a big open world PvP skirmish (on my PvP server). I enjoyed the little convenience things Trion added to the game, like the LFG and the Public Group tools. Heck, the game even made healing enjoyable for a noob healer such as myself (largely due to the proactive healing build it allowed me to create).
Just a shame that some of the good things were bogged down by certain annoyances. Like how I always out-leveled the questing content I was on, due to how fast leveling is (just look at how far I got my characters in 1 month, in the vid). Also once I reached endgame (my 1st time in an MMO), I got bored in a day. Endgame PvP was a mess of OP builds and people who outgeared me. Luckily my cleric was hard to kill. Also because I had crappy gear I couldn't do any T1 dungeons and the normal ones became a cake walk.
Rift is a fun game but just not something that would keep me occupied for more than a month or two.
I would like to add to the "polish" point that Rift is stable like nothing else I've played.
The stability is exemplified by performance against "Invasion Bosses". During these fights, pretty much everybody in a zone rushes to this boss to help take him down, and in the starter zone, you can get 100 players or more, during peak time, fighting this Invasion boss and a few of his minions. And no major performance issues.
The other MMOs I've played start to have problems when you start getting more than 10 or 20 players in an area not doing anything. Yet Rift can get a ridiculous amount of people in an area in a kick-ass boss fight, scale it to the people in the battle, complete with all the animations, buffs/debuffs, etc. I didn't know this could even be done, especially in a game with such high quality graphics.
I think a lot of people overlook what the folks at Trion were able to put together in the guts of this game, the stuff we don't see.
Best review i ever seen on Rift
Playing: Single player games |
Awaiting: Wild Star |Blade & Soul | The Repopulation | The Elder Scrolls online | ArcheAge | Firefall | Survarium | Bless | Black Desert |
Played: Guild Wars | Diablo 3 |The War Z | Runescape |World of Warcraft |Combat Arms |Perfect World | Rift | Fiesta | DC universe online | Aion | Age of Conan |Allods | Vindictus | The Secret World | Forge | Battle of the Immortals | Global Agenda| Cabal Online | Tera |
Well said, I agree with all those points. I think people overlook how awesome the multi-soul system actually is (maybe they never got high enough level to appreciate it). I was changing my leveling spec every 4-5 levels. It kept leveling and combat extremely fresh and exciting. Maybe it was just playing rogue, but I felt like the "ideal" leveling spec bounced around. Also it is cheap as hell to respec, unlike when you are leveling in WoW where you feel like every respec is draining your gold reserves.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
Excellent review and, imo, absolutely spot on. I wonder what it's going to be like in, say, 18 months time, because, it can only get better.
Right on the money; good points all.
And yeah ... I just let my sub go b/c while it is a really stable, sorta fun game ... it was not something/anything overly memorable or noteworthy that could hold my attention for any length of time (I think 5+ years of WoW left me completely scorched on fantasy mmo's ... at least ones that follow this similar formula)
This is a pretty good review. However, just about all MMOs have balance issues especially in PvP. It is very hard to fix and also perception. For example I find Marksmen easy to kill at level 50 unless I am highly outgeared or have a pocket healer. It is hard to tell everything is going on in a WF to know how much help they are getting. I find with my Rogue builds warriors are easy to drop with either range or bleeds. I think it is a matter of perception and knowing the others weaknesses on what is overpowered. That being said if there is a warrior hitting for 9k I would have to say that is overpowered just like when Pyros could one shot people. I have yet to be hit for 9k by a warrior but have been one shotted by Pyros but that has been fixed. So I do understand where you are coming from. Everyone should have the chance to react to an attack for the sake of balance. I really enjoyed your post.
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Yeah, the soul tree system helped make levelling so interesting for me. I remember when I started off my cleric leveling with a Shaman/Sentinel/Warden build with a lot of melee, ranged dps and heals. Making it highly survivable for leveling but a bit slow in killing. Then when I finally got enough points for the Shaman charge, I respecced to Shaman/Druid/Warden. Becoming a more effective melee dps. Then I later respecced again to get the druid pet for more dps.
The fact that I remember all this, in such a positive light, proves how good of a system it is.
Great review. RIFT to me is more a clone of EQ2 then a clone of WoW, I just dowloaded EQ2 Ex and at some point I thought I was playing RIFT. I got my Rogue toon to level 50 pvp rank 3, I have tested every soul of that class and just stuck with Assassin, Assassin just fit the Rogue best to me all other souls just seem from another planet. the reason I left is because of the game is being flooded with OVER POWER CLERICS just for warfronts, once they fix the problems I will return, very clean and good MMORPG I must add.
Yeah, the wide variety of soul combos makes pvp balancing hard. So far, I like the 1.3 changes except on my chloro.
I mainly agree with you, though still playing. I do enjoy the rifts a lot.
I hope that Trion makes the world more RPGish in the sense of putting in more elements that make it a virtual world. Right now it feels a little constrained. It reminds me a bit of AoC and the constraints on its world. I wish it were more open.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.